LAS VEGAS ? People don’t like to hear it because it sounds so crass, and because people are being asked to pay $100 to watch a prize fight Saturday night, and because so many people actually are expected to fork over. But when you are making $180 millionish in one night because you’re 47-0, the zeroes on the paycheck mean more than the one on the record.
One begets the other, but in Floyd Mayweather’s bottom-line approach, the fight with Manny Pacquiao is won already.
He either will raise his hand in the ring or not. Then, he will post a photo on his Instagram account of himself holding a check for tens of millions, with all the figures perfectly legible, for the world to see, to prove he was the winner, regardless what the referee and three judges determine.
Mayweather sat in a small conference room near MGM Grand Garden Arena this week and discussed why he took the Pacquiao fight now, why it was so important to him after all these years.
Legacy? Pressure?
“Money,” he said. “My kids. I’m not going to lie to you. Of course, everything plays a major key. I love the fans, I want to give them excitement, I love them.”
But the fans weren’t the main reason, like the carnies have pitched this three-ring circus?
“No, the money,” he said. “Investment. Because I look at things in a business aspect.”
Not exactly a surprise. This isn’t about championship belts filled with emeralds, or glad-handers patting you on the back, or doing right by the masses when they barely can afford to watch on television. Maybe it is about all of that for Pacquiao. Maybe that even works out for him. He might win the fight.
But Mayweather, the highest-earning athlete in sports, is about to earn an amount in one night that could require decades for anyone to surpass, even with inflation. It would be difficult for another boxer to come along with the talent to get there, the staying power to remain long enough to make promoters and television networks kow-tow, the business model, the team, and the continuity to replicate it.
It only could happen in an individual sport, and there isn’t another individual like him. Floyd Mayweather “messed off millions” in his youth, but could make $180 million for fighting Manny Pacquiao on Saturday. Cory Olsen | MLive.com
“There might be someone out there who could break my records someday. But I don’t see it right now,” Mayweather said.
As much as he talks about his athletic success, he was talking about financial records, not boxing ones.
He made financial mistakes in his youth. “I messed off millions,” he admitted.
But he stuck around and recovered. The money he makes now will set up his descendents for generations. The Mayweathers were Grand Rapids’ working class. In a century, the family will be old money because of the extraordinary events of today.
In what remote way could anyone possibly think an undefeated boxing record is more important than a legacy of that sort?
If Saturday is an artistic success and both sides want to do it again, maybe it happens. It’s still more likely that Mayweather-Pacquiao is a one-off. Asked what is left to do after this fight, it was suggested to Mayweather that Pacquiao II might be the only thing that makes sense. But he answered quickly, like someone who understood the obvious, which so many cavalierly overlook: Selling the reality of Mayweather-Pacquiao could prove much more challenging than selling the concept of it.
Keys to Floyd Mayweather beating Manny Pacquiao MLive.com’s David Mayo and Josh Slagter break down what Mayweather must do to remain unbeaten Saturday night. “No,” he blurted. “No. I can’t say at this particular time.”
He is 38 years old and doesn’t often see three of his four children, Koraun, Shamaree and Jirah, his two sons and daughter by Josie Harris, the woman he was convicted of assaulting in a 2010 incident that sent him to jail for nine weeks in 2012. Harris subsequently moved to California and took the children.
Those nine weeks in isolated custody weren’t the real loss for Mayweather from that assault conviction.
“I love my children,” he said. “It’s been bothering me a lot that three of them, I haven’t been able to see. You know, that’s been bothering me a lot. But you know how women are sometimes.”
Not at all the best way to put it, though Mayweather unfiltered sells.
This fight could have happened in 2010. That’s what the fans wanted.
They still want it, in such droves that the few lingering little voices still clinging to the it’s-five-years-late narrative sound too unintelligent to count.
“Five years ago, this was a $50 million fight for me,” Mayweather said. “This was a $20 million fight for him.”
Floyd Mayweather: Past trash talk all about business Floyd Mayweather explains why he doesn’t plan to call out Manny Pacquiao as part of the promotion for their May 2 fight in Las Vegas. So now you can watch the oft-delayed fight — or gripe about it. Plop down your Benjamin Franklin — or keep it. If you expect a brawl, maybe you get one — or maybe you talked yourself into a heck of a fight. It’s pay-per-view boxing. Caveat emptor.
Regardless what happens, the five-year sales pitch has worked. Mayweather was quiet all week because he didn’t have to sell the fight. And when it ends, he will take a few days off, then hop on his 14-passenger private jet and fly from city to city watching NBA playoff games.
He will have one fight left on his contract. He says he will fulfill it. But a 47-1 Mayweather, fighting anyone but Pacquiao again, is devalued. If you’re looking for reason for Mayweather’s athletic motivation from a business-first standpoint, there it is. They are inextricably linked, winning and earning.
But to Mayweather — and any right-thinking person, for that matter — the nine-figure check is more important than 48-0 in corporate boxing.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” Mayweather said. “Because at the end of the day, my daughter can’t eat the zero. She can’t eat a boxing record.”
